Speedy Ortiz, Villain.

While its barbed guitar parts may well have been snagged from the same cloth as Undone – The Sweater Song, Villain – the third to emerge from Speedy Ortiz’ forthcoming Twerp Verse full-length – is loaded with infinitely more incisive (and, for that matter, temporally relevant) lyrical content than Rivers Cuomo has ever proven capable thereof. Concerning “the mental gymnastics survivors have to do, and the relief that comes when you talk through trauma with your friends, family, therapist, or whoever helps you let go of the shame you don’t deserve to feel”, Sadie Dupuis is now offsetting the Massachusetts outfit’s typically disquieting tones with quips intended to discomfit transgressive sorts who most certainly do deserve to bear the full brunt of social opprobrium. “I don’t wanna be the sullen type/ I don’t want my secrets safe for life,” she’ll affirm with a firmness of thought and word – indeed, although this one was in fact written in 2014, there remains a marked immediacy to it; something that was perhaps inspired, if not instilled, by a certain incident which took place some years prior. And while she may also sing: “You win some, and you lose some,” Speedy Ortiz are quite incontestably onto a winner with Twerp Verse.